Not My Mother
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Tag to "Nightmare in Silver". Clara confronts Angie about her attitude. Sometimes old wounds need to be opened before they can heal.


Not My Mother

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

It was the two piercing, high-pitched voices in the kitchen that told Artie something was wrong. His sister Angie raising her voice was an everyday occurrence, but for Clara – who was just as fierce, but much more self-controlled – it was a different thing, and so he put down his Amelia Williams novel with no small amount of trepidation as he made his way downstairs.

"For the last time, Angie, I said _no_!"

"_Why not?"_

"Because it's dangerous!"

"You never let me do anything fun!"

"Says the girl who almost got herself _cyberized_ last time! You call that fun?"

"At least it wasn't boring!"

As Artie wandered into the kitchen, he saw Clara whirling around among the pots on the stove, her ponytail swinging sharply as she snapped at Angie over her shoulder. Angie, meanwhile, stood with her lips locked in a pout and her arms braced against the counter, barricading herself behind it like the soldiers at Hedgewick's behind the castle moat. The chicken strips and vegetables sizzling in the wok might almost have been ignited by their anger; even the rice noodles were bobbing frantically against the lid of their pot, as if they wanted to escape.

Artie held his book in both arms and cleared his throat.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Clara's being stupid," Angie snarled. "Just because I asked her to let her boyfriend help me with my history report - "

"And I told her – first, he's not my boyfriend - " Angie scoffed; Artie smiled at his shoes. "Second, there is no way in hell I'll let her go to 1945! Not in any country, and especially not Germany. Homework or Auschwitz, eh? It's hardly a difficult choice!"

Artie winced. He had read up enough on the subject to imagine very vividly how Nazi soldiers would react to a black English girl in their territory.

"Clara's right," he said. "That's not a good idea. If I were you, I'd stick to your homework."

"Don't be such a baby, Artie!" Angie rolled her dark eyes at the ceiling. "Nothing's gonna happen to me, I promise. Not if the Doctor takes me."

"You can't guarantee that," Clara replied, in a lower voice that was all the more powerful. She put down her spatula and turned to face Angie, with more darkness in her hazel eyes than anyone her age should have.

"People died at Hedgewick's, remember?" she said. "_You_ almost died."

"But he saved us in the end," Angie retorted.

"It was a close call," Artie put in.

"Too close." Clara twisted her apron strings around her fingers, trying to disguide their shaking. "I'm not putting you in that kind of danger again."

"That's not fair!" Angie balled up her fists in the long purple sleeves of her jumper. "How come _you_'re allowed to chase red zombies in Victorian Yorkshire and ride in Soviet submarines with nuclear missiles, and I can't even listen to Hitler's last speech? If it's not too dangerous for you, why is it for me?"

Clara turned her back and, with deliberate gestures, picked up the pot, carried it to the sink, and poured its contents through the sieve she had placed there, allowing the water to drain away. With the sieve full of freshly cooked rice noodles in her hands, she turned around.

"Because until you turn eighteen," she said quietly. "Somebody else is responsible for your choices. And when your dad's not there, that somebody is me."

To his horror, Artie saw his older sister's face twist like a cartoon image – an angry, futile effort to suppress her tears.

"I'm not a _child_," she sobbed, swiping at her eyes with clenched fists. "And you're not my mum! You can sound like her, you can act like her, but you'll never be her! _I hate you!_"

Having hurled those final words at Clara in a shrill, tear-choked scream, Angie whirled around and ran for the door, ready to lock herself in her room and blast her One Direction playlist at top volume, as she always did. This time, however, Artie had had just about enough of her theatrics. He missed their mother as much as anyone, but that was no excuse.

"Don't you talk to Clara that way," he said, catching Angie's arm as she barrelled past him. "Take it back. Right now!"

"Let go of me, you little - "

She shook him off roughly, and was just about to shove him against the wall when Clara threw herself between them, eyes blazing, one strong hand on each of their shoulders. The sieve with the noodles had landed on the floor, face up, white ribbons scattered wildly across the tiles. None of them noticed.

"That's enough," Clara ordered, in the same voice which had prevented Captain Alice from imploding the planet. "Both of you."

Artie lowered his hands; so, looking shamefaced, did Angie. Silence fell, broken only by faint sizzling from the wok. The smells of cooking chicken, garlic and oil were warm and heavy in the air.

"Angie," said Clara, turning to place both her hands on the younger girl's shoulders. "I know how you feel."

A sniff was her only answer.

"It's not me you hate," Clara said softly. "It's everything. Yourself, your mother, that driver who didn't look where he was going, the ambulance that came too late. You wish the universe had a face so you could kick its teeth in, don't you? Because how could it be so cruel as to let her die?"

"I know how that feels. You have a right to feel that way. Only don't …. don't take it out on the people who care about you, yeah? Believe me, you'll regret it if you do."

Angie's lips trembled. Tears slid down her caramel-colored face. With a sigh of surrender, she buried her face in the crook of Clara's shoulder and allowed herself to be slowly rocked from side to side, just as Laura Maitland had done when her children were babies.

"I … I never got to say … I was sorry," Angie whispered.

Artie remembered that last fight: their mother rattling kitchen appliances just as Clara did, her own anger barely contained in the face of Angie's rage. G_o to your room, young lady. I can't cook with you pouting like a B-grade diva back there. _

Only he had seen the way Laura had shaken her frizzy curls after Angie's stormy exit; only he had heard her sigh over her chopping board, as if hurting her daughter's feelings had hurt her own twice over.

That night, George Maitland had come back early from the office, in response to a call from the hospital. They had seen his face fade to the color of old cardboard among the sterile white walls, and his gray business suit hanging on his shoulders like a scarecrow's. He had never been the same again. Neither had they.

They were not a religious family. Artie never knew what made him say what he said next, only that it felt true.

"She_ knows _you're sorry, Angie," he said.

Angie did not call him stupid, or argue, or say a single word. She only raised one hand and twitched her fingers, gesturing for him to come closer. Shyly, awkwardly, he put his own thin arms around both girls. It was the first kind touch Angie had shown him in the months since their mother's death.

Clara's shirt, he thought, blinking wet eyes at the red cotton pressed against his cheek, was going to need a lot of washing.

A sharp smell of burning was what finally drew them apart. Clara swore colorfully, shot a guilty glance at the children, and darted across the room.

"Smells like roasted toanails," was Angie's comment. Artie snickered.

"In my professional opinion," said Clara, wrinkling her nose over the wok, "I'd say it's a lost cause. Anyone for pizza?"

Angie grinned – a real, eye-crinking, wide-faced grin – and held up her hand. Artie, thankful for so much more than Clara's bad cooking, grinned back and gave his sister a resounding high five.


End file.
